Jeremy Allaire Launches Circle Internet Financial With $9 Million Series A from Jim Breyer, Accel Partners & General Catalyst Partners

A new startup founded by Jeremy Allaire will seek to drive mainstream
adoption of digital currency such as Bitcoin by bringing payment
acceptance tools to merchants, and easy to use services to consumers.
The company announced today it has raised a $9 million Series A from Jim
Breyer, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners.

Jim Breyer will join the Board of Directors of Circle, as will David
Orfao of General Catalyst Partners. Jim Breyer, Accel and General
Catalyst were investors in Allaire’s previous company, Brightcove, the
industry-leading online video platform which had a successful IPO in
2012, and where Jeremy still serves as the company’s Chairman. Allaire
also was a co-founder of Allaire Corp., whose ColdFusion product
pioneered the Web application development market and led to a successful
IPO in 1999. Allaire Corp. was then acquired by Macromedia in 2001,
where Allaire became CTO, and helped spearhead the strategy to create an
application platform built around Flash.

“Bitcoin and digital currency represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to shape the future of the Internet and global commerce,” said Jeremy
Allaire, founder and chief executive officer of Circle Internet
Financial, Inc. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to make payments
easier, more secure and less costly for consumers and businesses.
Digital currency can dramatically reduce the friction and costs
currently experienced in the world by merchants and consumers.”

Circle launches amid surging interest in the promise of new global
digital currencies such as Bitcoin, which can enable nearly instant
payments and money transfers globally at almost no cost and with greater
security and privacy than existing electronic payment methods. Like
prior Internet-led disruptions of the media, communications and retail
industries, Bitcoin’s disruption of payments and finance builds on open
source and open standards to create resilient technology platforms that
innovators can build upon.

Like the early years of the commercial Internet, digital currency today
is often perceived as fringe, difficult to use, unregulated and
therefore unsafe for mainstream acceptance or adoption. But like the
birth of leading commercial Internet software and online service
companies in the mid 1990s, Circle aims to build on the open foundations
of Bitcoin to deliver exceptional consumer and merchant products that
can facilitate mainstream adoption.

Founded and led by Internet entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, and backed by
world leading venture investors, Circle brings decades of technology and
management leadership to the nascent but fast-growing global digital
currency ecosystem.

“It is rare to find a world-class entrepreneur embarking on a path to
bring innovation to the global financial marketplace,” said Jim Breyer,
Partner, Accel Partners. “The dramatic global growth in mobile, social
and online commerce is creating the need and potential for a real global
digital currency. With Jeremy’s vision for Circle and track record as an
Internet pioneer, the opportunity here is to potentially build a
significant global company. I’m very pleased to be working with Jeremy
again.”

Circle’s forthcoming products will include online services for both
consumers and merchants seeking to adopt and use Bitcoin and digital
currency for payments and money transfers.

For consumers, Circle will provide an easy-to-use service to exchange,
store, send and receive digital currency. The company is building a
secure architecture that will increase consumer privacy protection and
provide tools for making payments and sending and receiving digital
currency.

For businesses and charities, Circle will provide a suite of tools and
services that allow them to accept payments in digital currency with no
transaction fees. These payment tools will integrate into both online
and in-person payments, lowering costs while reducing the risks of fraud
and chargebacks often associated with credit and debit cards.

Circle is regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(“FinCEN”), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Treasury, as a money
transmitter and is seeking appropriate state licenses. Circle also
recently hired John Beccia as General Counsel and Chief Compliance
Officer. Beccia, former Chief Regulatory Counsel for the Financial
Services Roundtable in Washington, D.C. brings decades of operating
experience in banking, compliance and risk management. Circle is
committed to working with key government agencies and policymakers
worldwide.

About Circle

Circle Internet Financial is a privately held digital currency company
based in Boston and with international operations headquartered in
Dublin, Ireland. The company was founded in 2013 by Internet pioneer and
serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire. Circle is backed by venture capital
leaders Jim Breyer, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners. For
more information, please visit www.circle.com.

Adobe ColdFusion software solves the day-to-day challenges of Internet application development, allowing Web application developers to be extremely productive as they create and deliver engaging online applications. And because it fits into any IT environment, Web designers can use ColdFusion for everything from small departmental applications to highly scalable, reliable implementations of the most important business applications. ColdFusion Developer's Journal was first launched 12 years ago. Ulitzer brings more than 7,000 original CFDJ articles and ColdFusion authors from archives in ColdFusion Developer's Journal 2.0.

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